Future Consequences
by Beautiful.Blur
Summary: When a curious visitor from the future lands at the proverbial and literal feet of the Halliwell's, what will they make of her? And how does she know Chris? A semi-AU fic, which is mainly a product of my boredom which eventuated after an afternoon spent watching reruns. Note :: Bianca exists, but not in the way she did in the canon.
1. prologue

::

Considering how much of Chris' time was spent trying to remember what he could and couldn't say, what he'd said and what he absolutely shouldn't tell – it had become the case that his sullen moods could barely be distinguished from one to the next, anymore. That is, the mood he was almost always in about the future evil tyranny he was trying to stop his own brother from inflicting upon the world, and the almost sorrowful mood he tried to suppress the rest of the time about missing the few things he had left behind in the future, were now almost one in the same.

Even before the girls and Leo had come to know who Chris truly was (one lie which had unravelled rather easily once it had gotten out of his hands), they'd always thought he was more than just a bit moody and all too gloomy. He'd heard them on more than one occasion refer to him (affectionately he hoped) as their bitchy whitelighter. All of that considered, none of them had noticed this morning the slight shift in his skulking; from evil brother worries to lonely boy sadness – not even Piper, who despite his reluctance to admit as much, had a better chance than most at seeing through his poorly concealed fibs.

So upon wrangling the sisters three together for their pre-arranged, previously agreed upon and planned-out vanquish, Chris was in a particularly foul mood. And he wasn't even really sure why, exactly. When he'd woken up this morning, something was different – something in the air had shifted, and something in him had shifted, too. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

'Lighten up, Chris.' Phoebe taunted him after they'd orbed into yet another gloomy and sinister-looking alleyway.

'Yeah. Would it kill you to crack a smile there, future boy?' Paige joined in once she and Piper landed, tugging playfully on the back of his sweater as she wandered past him and carried on into the smoggy lane.

'What's the matter, honey?' Piper trailed behind the other two girls, casting a worried glance over her son which she paired with a very motherly tone of voice.

'Nothing.' Chris tried to ease her concern, but to no avail. 'I just feel a bit... weird. That's all. I'm sure it's nothing.'

'Weird? How weird? Like, magic weird – or fever weird? Because if you-'

'Mom, I'm fine. I promise.' Piper finally softened at Chris' reassurance. 'Now can we get this vanquish over with already?'

The mother-son duo caught back up with the other two Halliwell's who had made their way well into the alleyway, now. 'Okay, so...' Paige was ever impatient, looking around for something to vanquish, or whatever it was that'd lead their scrying here in the first place.

'Wait for it.' Chris barely got the words out before something shimmered in behind his aunts, the two of them whipping around and obliterating the leathery faced something-or-other before it even had a chance to thrash out so much as a fireball.

'Well, that was easy.' Piper was tucked albeit reluctantly behind her son, but with the immediate danger gone she moved out from him. 'Oh-' But almost as soon as she had, the wall at the end of the alley lit up in a shimmering blue light and a body flung from the veil, landing heavily on a pile of boxes. '-spoke too soon.' Hands at the ready, Piper was poised to blow up and/or freeze who or whatever it was that had just arrived - depending on circumstance of course.

'Who are you?' Paige and Phoebe were closest to the intruder, peeking into the pile of boxes curiously before announcing themselves. The mystery visitor was clambering over cardboard, hastily checking to make sure they wasn't missing anything; limbs or maybe the contents of their pockets by the looks of their flailing hands.

'Oh for the love of...' A soft, smokey voice sang out from the pile of cardboard: it was a woman, dressed in black jeans, a button down and chucks – not your average demon attire. She had one hand clutched to her side where a dark crimson was seeping through her clenched fingers and down the cerulean cotton of her shirt.

'Oh, you're hurt!' Paige rushed forward and offered a steadying hand to the tawny haired stranger. 'What's your name?' She glanced quickly at Phoebe, who shook her head almost imperceptibly to let Paige know that she couldn't get a read the woman with her empathy. And all the while, Chris was still stood protectively in front of his mother and not paying nearly enough attention to their visitor.

Finally managing to drag the girl out from the pile of boxes, Paige and Phoebe had a better chance to look at her before deciding whether or not to orb her off to be healed. She was slight - about as lacking in height as the Halliwell women themselves, with a milky complexion, a dusty blonde mop of hair which was a mess of soft curls, and a sweet dusting of freckles. She also had wide blue eyes and bee-stung lips, and looked about as wary of the alley full of strangers as they were of her. 'Nora. My name is Nora.' She murmured, barely getting the words out before she lost her grip on the consciousness she'd been clinging to so hopelessly since she'd fallen though the portal.

'Nora?' The husky whisper had finally caught Chris' attention, and with it he swung away from Piper. Phoebe and Paige realised that by leaving his mother unguarded, Chris obviously didn't think that the intruder was a risk – which meant that she was an innocent. Much to the the girls' shock, he reached desperately for the limp woman, barely managing to catch her before Nora keeled over in the pool of blood at her feet.

::


	2. chapter one

::

'Leo!' A chorus of cries rang out as the foursome of Halliwell's, plus their bleeding visitor, orbed back into the manor.

Back in the alleyway; Chris had gathered up the crumbled girl and all but orbed straight back to the house without so much as a backwards glance. Paige had followed him, orbing in shortly after with Phoebe and Piper in tow. All three women looked on with as much curiosity as concern, at Chris' reaction to the girl named Nora.

When they'd arrived, he was knelt over her prone body where he'd laid her on the sofa, with one hand pressed to the gash in her side under her ridden-up shirt and his other brushing worriedly over her pale face. 'Leo!'

As it happened, what they thought had been a minor gash sustained in her crash landing, was actually what looked to be a stab wound - which she could only have suffered prior to jumping through the portal.

'What's the matter?' Leo finally materialised just behind the group who were crowded around the sofa, shooting off a confused look at the sight of his son wrapped up in a girl whom he'd never seen before.

'Heal now, questions later.' Piper waved a hand over the scene, shrugging slightly as she did. Leo leant down beside Chris, who only moved a fraction from Nora so as to let his father get just close enough to heal her. 'What happened?' Chris eyed the warm glow radiating from his father's hands carefully, watching as the deep angry slash got smaller and smaller and Nora's chest to started to rise and fall steadily as her eyes to began to flutter.

'Well,' Paige started without really knowing what to say, because none of them really knew what had happened. 'We were at a vanquish, which went well.' She glanced at Phoebe, unsure of what to mention next.

'Yeah, it did. And then a portal opened, I guess...' Chris flinched slightly at the mention of it, but Phoebe carried on. 'And then next thing we know, Nora – that's Nora,' She pointed at the still unconscious girl. '–just kind of appeared.'

'A portal?' Leo looked at Chris, waiting for some kind of an answer.

'Yep.' He didn't look up from where his gaze was fixed on who they all now knew was Nora. 'Nora?' The tone Chris took with Leo was not unusually clipped, but it was in starker than usual contrast to the soft, gentle tone he took with their visitor.

A soft groan emanated from the sofa, and with it a fraction of the tension Chris'd been holding rolled off his shoulders as Nora started to wake. Her forehead creasing with confusion, it took the girl a moment before everything fell into place and she realised where, and with whom, she was. Her eyes shot open, and she all but wrenched her hand from the gentle hold Chris had on it. Sitting up probably all too quickly, Nora reefed up the hem of her shirt to check the side where her stab wound had been.

Chris retreated reluctantly to sit on the coffee table, giving Nora some space. 'Are you okay?' Leo asked of the girl who was on her way to being well and truly awake, now. 'I'm Leo.'

Nora smiled, albeit nervously. 'Thanks, yes.' Smoothing down her shirt, it was obvious that she was purposely avoiding making eye contact with Chris. Brittle energy was rolling off her in waves, but not in a way which was in any way sinister. She was all but contorting herself on the pillowy seat in an effort to keep from inadvertently touching the young whitelighter who sat nearby.

'Who did that to you?' Piper spoke to Nora as she watched the strange interaction with concern, heartache evident on her son's face and in his slumped shoulders.

For the first time since she'd dropped in, Nora made eye contact with Chris. Her eyes were wide and her lips downturned, the small and wordless exchange only making it evermore obvious that the two young future beings had some kind of a connection. Chris let out a deep breath, growling on his next word. 'Wyatt.'

His head sagged forward where he sat hunched forward on his knees, one hand reaching out and grasping at Nora's. The girl just watched for a moment, her face softening at the sight of the tired, defeated boy sat in front of her. It was obvious she felt almost bad about it when she tugged her hand free again, moving away from him once more.

'I'm sorry.' Piper broke the heavy silence. They all knew what Chris' angry declaration meant – that somehow and for some reason, from the dark version of their future, Wyatt had hurt this girl – had stabbed and almost killed Nora. But what remained unclear was just how Nora knew the two Halliwell boys.

Nora could do little more than to offer the older woman a weak smile, meeting her eyes for but a moment before her gaze went back to flitting nervously around the room.

'Why here, though?' Phoebe hadn't meant for her question to sound as accusatory as it did, but she earned herself a swift and cutting glare from her nephew anyhow. 'Sorry-' She smiled warmly at Nora, going about correcting herself. '-I just meant, was there a reason you had the spell bring you here, specifically?'

With five sets of eyes trained on her and a loaded question to boot, Nora was left with little option but to spill her proverbial beans. Although, not being one to be easily pressed, she addressed her answer lowly and solely to Chris. 'He figured it out.'

Chris had barely lifted his head from where it had fallen earlier, only doing so to meet Nora's veiled gaze. 'How much?' The pair of them might as well have been speaking in tongues, with the rest of the room's occupants exchanging multiple confused glances in their efforts to keep up.

'All of it.' Her voice cracked with the admission, and suddenly Chris became impossibly more tense.

'Alright, someone wanna catch me up, here?' Piper, not known for her good patience, interrupted. 'And don't you say future consequences, so help you...' But her stern warning was left unfinished when her fury-eyed son cut her off.

'Wyatt tried to kill-' Nora watched the now standing man in front of her as he became increasingly unhinged, wondering if he might say the wrong thing. '-an innocent, because he found out that I had help in getting back here in the first place! Because he found a new way to hurt me.' He spat out the words, quietly seething as he paced around the room. His gaze never left Nora for very long, but nonetheless he hadn't noticed the way that Nora had flinched at his mention of her being an innocent. Chris didn't see the look on her face, and the downcast and then dismayed look that spread across her delicate features, when he called her the term which was so flippant and so common.

'But you're safe now, right?' Paige tried to break the tension, offering the obvious but yet to be asserted fact that Nora was indeed safe from Wyatt, at least for now. 'We'll figure something out, Chris, but she's safe now.' Attentions had moved almost totally to the agitated Halliwell, so much so that by the time Paige's levelheaded reassurances had stuck a chord, no one had even noticed Nora fade out.

::


	3. chapter two

[You might notice I've borrowed from a theme which presents in the last season, and toyed with it a little.]

::

'Wait, where'd she go?' Piper was the first one to notice that their visitor was no longer on the sofa – or, in fact, anywhere to be seen. 'Nora?' She started looking around the room, whilst Paige and Phoebe both instinctively glanced toward the attic.

'She's not after the book.' Chris still sounded bitter, if a little more sober than before.

'Chris, sweetie, I know you think you know this girl – but you've been here a long time. It's possible that the future has changed while you've been away, or that she's not the same person that she was when you left.' Phoebe tried to be gentle with her nephew, well aware of what it was like to have to cope with accusations being thrown at someone you cared about.

'She's right, son.' Leo finally chimed in, orbing up to the attic before anyone could argue. Chris didn't try to retort, though. He just crossed his arms and waited for the older man to return to the parlour. 'She's not up there.' Annoyed that his word wasn't taken on face value by now, Chris ignored their questioning looks and started pacing again.

'Chris, you've gotta level with us, okay? Who is Nora? And how do you two know each other?' Piper intentionally avoided making anymore assertions. She was concerned about Wyatt and the fact that in the future he had apparently just tried to murder someone, but even more so with her heart stricken son who was here with her now.

'And what does Wyatt want with her? And what did you mean when you said she helped you get here?' Paige hadn't caught on, though. Not that it really mattered, because Chris wasn't listening. He was standing almost perfectly still, with his eyes shut tight and his breathing steady. He was concentrating or maybe meditating, it looked like.

'Okay, what is-' Throwing her hands up in frustration, the middle Halliwell was starting to loose patience at the lack of answers they were getting. That is until she was stopped in her tracks when she spied the wide-eyed look spreading across Leo's face.

'Oh my god...' He mumbled to himself, obviously having realised something that the girls had not. But before anyone could question either man, Nora reappeared.

'Wait a minute...' Piper watched Nora curiously, noting the fact the the sad girl who had been sat on her sofa not half and hour ago, now looked beyond furious and had her maddened gaze fixed squarely on Chris.

'How dare you!' She darted an angry finger at Chris, her voice almost growling as she stared at him pointedly with her eyes brimming with silent accusations and betrayal. 'You have no right!' Chris shrank at her harsh tone, obviously aware that whatever he'd done to bring her here wasn't going to be well received, but also not so concerned about it that he was sorry.

'Nora is your true love?' Leo wasn't even paying any attention to the rest of the room anymore. He was focused solely on Chris. The girls looked like they were watching a game of tennis with their confused looks darting from one man to the next, while Nora maintained her steely gaze.

'Wait, what?' Phoebe tired to shake some answers from her brother-in-law the Elder to no avail. 'What?' So she tried whispering to Piper, thinking maybe her sister might have garnered something that she hadn't.

Chris tore his gaze away from Nora's to meet his father's, his face apparently confirming everything that Leo already knew. 'It's too dangerous – what if he comes back? What if he finds you?!' Turning back to Nora, Chris tried to explain himself.

'I don't need you to take care of me, Chris. I've been looking after myself just fine for quite some time now, remember?' Her acerbic words were thinly veiled, but enough to keep the rest of the room in the dark. 'You don't get to use that power against me anymore.' For as angry as she obviously was, the cracks in Nora's voice told a longer story. 'Don't you dare use that against me, Chris.'

'Okay, wait – I'm still confused.' Not one to give up easily, Phoebe figured it couldn't hurt to shatter this particular moment as a chance to finally get some answers.

Nora stepped away from the battle stance she'd taken, clearing the way for Leo to tentatively explain his son's situation. 'You know how when you need me, you call – or with Cole even, you would call and he would hear you?' The girls all nodded hastily, willing him to get on with it. 'Well, when two people are completely and truly destined to love one another – they become like one.' Nora and Chris had stalked as far away from the exchange as they could without actually leaving the room, so neither of them saw the wide-eyed looks that the Halliwell's tossed their way in light of Leo's revelation.

'And when two people have that kind of a connection-' Leo went on, '–they can summon one another. That's what he did, right Chris?'

Nora looked up at Chris again, waiting just as keenly for him to announce his answer out aloud as everyone else. 'Yes.' He sighed at his family, 'Yes.' He moved to get closer to Nora, who only backed away further with each step closer he got to her. 'We need your help. You have new information, right?' She narrowed her eyes at him, knowing where he was going. 'Irrespective of how you feel about me - if you want a future to go back to at all, you need to help us.' Fuming at his dirty tactics, Nora nonetheless seemed to resign herself to his point.

'You're a witch?' Paige was obviously having trouble keeping up with everything, although by the looks of everyone else she wasn't alone.

'Yeah. She cast a spell to get here, remember?' Phoebe chimed in.

'Oh, yeah.' Paige looked like she was starting to straighten out all of the information ruminating around her head. 'So, what are you packing? Power-wise, I mean?' Remaining slightly blunt, no one was quite sure of the best way to approach the girl from the future who was the true love of the youngest Halliwell son, and an apparentenemy of the elder one.

'Paige!' Piper scolded her sister. 'You don't have to answer that.' She turned to Nora, reassuring her with a small smile.

'It's okay,' Nora stuffed her hands in her pockets uncomfortably. 'I can fade-'

'Obviously.' Chris muttered under his breath, earning him several scalding looks.

'You wanna tell them?' Sarcastically, she retorted and waited pointedly for him to shake his head. 'So the fading, as well as some conjuring, molecular deceleration and telekinesis.' Her admission earned her some impressed, if slightly bewildered looks.

'Impressive.'

::


	4. chapter three

[In the timeline of this story, 'Chris-Crosssed' did not happen.]

::

'He's working from the existing spell.' The three Halliwell sisters, their Elder-in-law and one Halliwell son were all in the attic, with their futuristic visitor. Nora was trying to explain her theory for how they could delay future-Wyatt's apparently inevitable traverse back to pay them what was expected to be rather an unfriendly visit. 'And you can write a new spell, right? Not that it's of any use to Chris anyhow, since the existing spell only goes backwards.' Everyone looked like they were following her, but that hadn't stopped Nora seeming a little bit on edge – although considering she was essentially making a proposal to the Charmed One's, as well as an Elder and a man with whom she shared what was obviously rather a checkered romantic history, it was understandable. 'So, destroy the spell.'

We can't just destroy spells.' Phoebe reacted on impulse. 'Can we?' And then looked to the magical rule bearer who was Leo, realising that she wasn't actually sure.

'Your thinking being, that if we remove the spell from existence now, Wyatt won't have it to modify in the future?' Leo had that contemplative look about him, considering Nora somewhat unnervingly. She just nodded and shrugged slightly, waiting for a response. 'Chris?' Ever the diplomat however, Leo wanted some more input.

'Have you noticed any changes? In the future, I mean?' Chris and Nora were sat very much on opposite sides of the room: Chris was standing stiffly by his mother and Aunt Phoebe, whilst Nora was standing in front of the book, flanked by Paige and Leo.

'Little things, mostly. You've been on some kind of a kamikaze mission to rid the future of high-level demons, I take it?' Chris almost smiled at the revelation, somehow comforted by the idea that at least some of his hard work was paying off.

'I think it could work. For the time being, at least.' Chris looked reassuringly from Leo to Piper. 'Besides, what other options have we got?'

'Alrighty then!' Piper announced, getting up from her seat and wandering across the room to the book. 'What d'you want? Fire? Tearing? I've never blown up paper before, but I could give it a shot...'

'Fire seems pretty fool-proof.' Phoebe joined her two sisters at the book, with Nora having extricated herself to sit on a seat by the window. It was odd for them to be destroying something from their own sacred book, so it was obvious that it was something that the three girls wanted to do together.

Making their way to the cauldron, Piper dropped the folded parchment into the pot and waited for Paige to set it alight. The three of them watched as the inky works descended into ash, and made sure that every last trace of it was burnt to a crisp before they were satisfied it was done.

'You'll be helping us write a new one of those, by the way.' Piper looked to Nora, who was sat quietly on her own and surprised at the sudden conversation. 'I'll make you up a bed on the couch, and we'll hit this again tomorrow.' Without giving the girl a chance to respond, Piper was out the door to go and load herself up with blankets from the linen cupboard in the hallway.

'I think what she means is, we'll go over the who-turns-Wyatt-evil stuff, tomorrow.' Phoebe patted the bewildered looking girl on the shoulder.

'I, uh,' Nora cocked her head as she saw Piper wander past the door, laden with pillows. 'I don't need her to make me up a bed, really.'

'What're you gonna do – sleep standing up?' Paige shut the book, setting it right on it's stand. 'Because if that's something I have to look forward to in the future, I'm not sure I want to live to see it.'

Nora chuckled softly, Chris lifting his gaze to watch the small smile tugging at her lips. 'No,' She stood up from her seat, her attentions with Phoebe and Paige. 'I just meant, I'll go and come back.' The two woman almost looked agreeable to the idea. Not because they wanted Nora to leave, but mainly because it had been more than just a little bit obvious since the moment she'd fallen though the wall back in that alleyway, that she was uncomfortable–for whatever reason–with being around Chris.

'It's too dangerous.' And despite the fact the Chris was just about as uncomfortable with the situation as Nora seemed to be, he was still putting up a fight.

'He's right. You should be here with us. That way, if anything does happen, we'll all be together.' Leo chimed in and only briefly, before he orbed off to help Piper with the sofa.

'Well, I guess that's that.' Phoebe touched Nora on the arm, smiling. 'Let us know if you need anything.' She glanced between Nora and Chris before heading off herself. 'Goodnight.'

'Try not to annihilate each other while we're sleeping, 'kay? I'm really tired.' And Paige wasn't far behind her, which just left Nora and Chris. Alone.

'Are you okay?' Chris broke the silence.

'No,' Nora narrowed her eyes at him. 'But which trauma exactly are you referring to?' He winced at her sharp retort.

'Nora...' Whatever the thing was between the two of the them, it was obviously the source of as much hurt and pain as it was anger. Every word and every glance was brimming with heartache, and the friction between them was enough to set the room alight.

'No, Chris.' Her voice shredded by the tightness in her throat, Nora was almost begging. 'No. I didn't come here to fix anything between us. You and I – we don't have a future to go back to, but we do have a world we can save, and that's why I'm here.'

'That's not fair.' He grabbed her arm as she went to walk past him and leave. 'You know I had to come back, Nora. I came back for us, to save our future-'

'I know that!' Tears started rolling down her tired face, her hands grappling at his hold on her arm. 'I'm so proud of you.' He finally released his hold of her arm when she brought her trembling hands to his face. 'But we both know it's not that simple, is it?' Chris' head fell forward to rest on her chest, his lips brushing at the juncture of her throat.

'I can fix it, Nora. Just let me fix it.' She couldn't bear to look at his tearstained face as she pushed his arms away. Stepping out of his grasp, she stumbled backwards and sobbed one more thing before she faded out.

You can't fix it.'

::


End file.
